


The Rain, Again

by PunmasterExtraordinaire



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Great Britain: where weather is practically sentient, Here comes the raaaaiiiin agaaaaaaiiiin..., I'm gonna call this Soggy Fluff, Songfic, because it's angsty AND fluffy AND ambiguously relationshippy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-31
Updated: 2013-02-03
Packaged: 2017-11-27 15:17:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/663484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunmasterExtraordinaire/pseuds/PunmasterExtraordinaire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"And so the rain falls, and England thinks of things that were and then weren't, that might have been and now never would and—perhaps—were never there at all." A contemplation of England's special relationship with the rain. (Songfic, but not aggressively so, contains USUKUS…maybe. Perhaps. You'll see.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which England Pours His Heart Out

**Author's Note:**

> Sadly, the song of choice for this fic is not "Everybody Wants To Rule The World," a Hetalian song if I've ever heard one. Nope, it's "Here Comes the Rain Again" by the Eurythmics, a British synth-pop-rock duo from the 80s. You might know them from the song "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)". At any rate, knowledge of the song is not necessary for the (dubious) enjoyment of this fic, though I would certainly recommend at least skimming through the lyrics.

England's first memory is of the rain.

He remembers the feeling distinctly: the scent of crushed moss and wet grass filling his nose with subtle sharpness, the sound of the light thuds of drops hitting living leaves slipping gently into his ears, the feeling of those same small impacts on his skin and the slippery-fresh feeling of wet greenery under the newborn skin of his fingers and cheek.

And, finally, when he opened his eyes, the sight of a world of muted greens, grey skies, and refracted light glittering from every fallen drop.

He remembers looking up then, and a raindrop fell directly onto the tip of his nose, startled a giggling gasp out of him. He had taken it to be a greeting from the rain—after all, if there were such things as _him_ , why not sentience _there_?—and responded, marveling at the sound of his own voice reverberating through the air for the first time.

.

Even in those long-ago days it made him a little quieter, a little calmer, a little more thoughtful. To him rain is and has always been a time of reflection, in dimmed windowpanes and cloudy puddles and the subtle sheen of damp pavement. The world reflected in a drop of water, and him reflecting on the world.

Over the centuries he developed a strange relationship with the showers that so often sweep over him. They dim the sky, block the sun, wash the color out of the world until only dullness remains, and inevitably leave behind acres of clinging muck. Yet the world in perpetual twilight has an uncanny beauty, a subtlety to shades and distinctions that reminds him of the very best teas, and the mud holds the vital fertility that feeds his people, his land, and—by extension—him. It is a necessary evil to life on his islands, but then again if an evil is necessary, is it truly evil anymore? The rain became a part of him—as if it ever wasn't—and now his grumbles are more for show than anything else.

His people feel it too, he knows—it's in the way they spend endless time complaining about a rainy day the way one might complain about a troublesome yet indisputably loveable pet. And when the skies clear and the sun shines bright and hot, they celebrate—but within a few days they begin to feel the slight edginess, the sliver of wrongness, the itch of anxiety that would build until the rain came again to wash it all away. A desert Great Britain would rapidly become a _deserted_ Great Britain.

 _Rain, rain, go away_ , they sing, but can't help but add _Come again another day._

.

When storms roll in over the Atlantic, he often finds himself on his high coastal cliffs, looking out over the blue-grey waves with their sharp white edges, reflecting the amorphous churning of the steel-grey clouds above.

He faces directly into the arriving storm, delighting in the power he finds there, power not of metal or rock but mere air and water, and needles of rain and sea-spray hit his skin and his land, the roars of sea and sky thrumming over his senses and growling through the bones and the chalk cliffs that were one and the same until the world was just reaction without thought, emotion without consideration, experience and nothing else. It is always within that chaos that he finds his greatest peace of mind _._

He wonders then, as the wind blasts through him and rain sends electric thrills under his shivering ribs, what would happen if he simply threw himself into the roiling waves far below. It would by no means kill him or even scratch him if he was smashed against the cliffs—instead he wonders where the ocean currents might carry him, what new discoveries might be found through his spyglass and over the horizon.

In the old days he had done it often enough, letting the winds that filled his sails carry his ship wherever they were wont. The rain had been with him even then, fresh water slicking the salt-rimed deck, stinging exhilaration-wide eyes and lungs drawing deep. In the moments when the wind howled defiantly into his soul and the ship teetered on the crest of a storm-wracked wave, seemingly waiting on the force of a single raindrop to push it one way or another, he'd stand poised at the wheel, knowing that in that breath of time he grasped the calm within the storm.

.

Always the feeling of rain pitter-pattering across his senses, physical and metaphysical, engenders within him the strangest yet most comfortable emotion he has known throughout his long life.

It isn't quite melancholia, but neither is it ebullience—calm yet restless, a vague itch at the back of his mind, ever present, never intruding.

Wistfulness, he calls it, though he knows it isn't quite the right word. But if he remembers correctly, _wist_ had meant 'intent, attentive; quiet, silent' and in that, at least, the word is right. It feels…fitting. To be full of silent intent, full of a patient purposefulness. Yes. An intent that, unfortunately, seems to be silent as to the identity of its target.

So he blinks away the drops that trickle into his eyes, filled with the paradox of quiet restlessness and calm invigoration. Though formless it is a peaceable enough determination, so England lets it lie snugly within him until the day it finally reveals itself.

How can he deny it? It is as much a part of him as the rain itself.

.

In recent centuries that itch has pointed—if such a thing can point—across the Atlantic.

The rain falls, and the drops feel like the pricks of remembrance trickling down his spine and into his memories, just as an old song or long-forgotten smell suddenly experienced would tug one's mind toward the indescribable feeling of an earlier time.

His anger, his disavowal, his rebellion, his insurrection; his hatred, his denunciation, his thoughtlessness, his…rejection.

So long ago it seems. So long ago it _was_.

It had hurt, at first—by all that was holy it had hurt. For years afterward he had averted his gaze from Canada's, turned to stare, stony-faced, at the sickly drizzle falling outside so he wouldn't have to look at those too-familiar features. He'd known Canada's expressions anyway, which would inevitably hold hurt, injured pride, and a subdued anger toward his two brothers for dragging him into their mess. But somehow the worst part was the quiet understanding that underlay it all, the needle-thin knives of pity and acceptance. England hated that understanding, for while his mind knew better, his foolish heart insisted that that expression had no place on America's face.

His colony's—his _brother_ 's rejection had hurt like a bullet to the gut, spilling not clean blood but that mixed with bile and stomach acids and all the other nasty bits best left hidden safely inside the body, out of one's sight. He had felt it pool within him, eating away, festering in sickly misery as water dripped down his face and his sprawled cloak soaked in the filth and cold blood of that field.

In the end, though, it had healed, as all wounds must if they do not kill—and he was far from dead. He slowly stitched himself whole again like cloth under his embroidery needle, leaving only a scar and the now-harmless bullet lodged deep within him.

He isn't some sodden sap, to weep and blubber at the first raindrop; he sniffs disdainfully at the very un-English idea. The memory is always there, though, falling from the sky and trickling down his collar, a whisper of a thread weaving faintly through his thoughts.

Now it is an old wound, an old pain, and an old regret, the scar worn familiar and thin with time, just another memory of bad times long past. It aches at times, certainly; a mere creaking echo of the pain that had been. It always seems to blossom around the other's birthday just as other veterans' old war-wounds might ache on long winter nights.

This is immaterial, however, a mere shadow of the tragedy of centuries before, and he is happy to let it remain so, forgotten in day-to-day life and a faint twinge when brought up. Nations who survive long enough learn the futility of wallowing in such ancient grievances; those who don't learn inevitably, irreparably end up destroying themselves as much as their nemesis when things dissolve into endless war and pointless hate. It's like trying to wrestle in a rosebush—and England had quite enough of that in the 1400s to last even _his_ lifetime. So England lets the past flow past like rain slipping his windowpane, and presents himself to the present, and does his damndest to ensure he has a future in the future.

.

Sometimes, though, he wishes they two might sit down together and lay to rest whatever thorny beast billows, intangible yet ineffably present, between them. That chimera he always feels stretching him, tugging at his stitches, pulling him in too many directions. It feels like the rain, too, a self-contradictory enigma that is at once his greatest annoyance and best friend.

He wishes he and America might talk about such serious matters for once in their centuries of being unshakeable brothers, unhappy enemies, unwilling allies, and unwitting friends. Yet his hesitance is always there, the imperceptible fear that he'd lose his temper as he inevitably does and America would retreat into his isolationist walls of obfuscating stupidity—and then nothing would be gained and far too much lost. Their easy antagonism is too precious to him, the status quo too good a state, and he finds himself responding in the way he always does, with cutting comments and subtle smiles. And America responds the way _he_ always does, with brash comments and sunshine smiles, and everything feels so… _all right_ …that England continues on peaceably in his role as infuriated ex-brother and America continues on cheerfully in his role as friendly village idiot.

.

And so the rain falls, and England tilts his head back to let it hit his face squarely, chuckling inwardly at the odd looks he receives from passersby—for indeed, a part of him feels ridiculous too.

And so the rain falls, and England thinks of things that were and then weren't, that might have been and now never would and—perhaps—were never there at all.

And so the rain falls over England, and he looks across the endless grey sea and wonders if the same rain falls there too.


	2. In Which The Band Get Its Feet Wet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is where the actual songfic-iness really starts to happen. And where we start diverging into serious headcanon time. And it won't make much sense at first, just a warning. See bottom for notes~~

_ Late 1983 _

The two were working in one of their hotel rooms in New York City, New York. Two Britons in America, writing songs.

Or they _would_ be, if the songs would permit themselves to be written. They'd already been here hours with nothing to show for it but a crumpled pile of scribbled notes and a few lines of musical notes that might eventually, possibly,  _maybe_  become a melody.

He'd tossed his notes on the table in exasperation a few minutes before. "We only need to start with that one line, and that one atmosphere, that one note, or that intro melody," he'd said, and frowned, unseeing, at his keyboard. "And the rest of it'll be like a puzzle where we needed to just fill in the missing pieces." But the only pieces they had now were anonymous bits of trees and water, refusing to come together in any meaningful pattern.

There was at least _something_ of the right music—the right lyrics, though, were proving entirely elusive. Their fruitless discussion of what they should be had built up into a gale-force argument, then drizzled out into un-restful peace. Now she stood at the window, looking out over the grey city and the grey sky.

Behind her he sat at his keyboard, working through the strains of what they had so far, a few simple lines in b-minor with a b-natural thrown in. It created an eerie, electric feeling on the edges of her mind, a key of melancholic monotony, of relaxed-yet-tensed shoulders and aching-yet-whole heart.

She sighed, rubbing her orange-dyed hair, and turned her mind away from such things. Inspiration loved to play hard to get when too eagerly pursued.

Looking out at the dim sky, she watched dark clouds roil yet again over the city, plump and dark with rain. Dreary, but restful, she thought. They called it New _England_ for a reason, after all.

She commented idly, "Well, here comes the rain again."

And as she caught her breath in surprise the notes from the keyboard abruptly stopped.

"What did you say?" he said, with that expectant catch in his voice that told her he had felt it too, the strange frisson of _connection_ that made the hairs on the back of her neck rise as if a single cold drop rolled down her spine.

She paused. "Here comes the rain again," she repeated slowly, rolling the words over her tongue.

He came to stand by her at the window, looking out at the first drops beginning to fall from the dark sky. "Falling—falling on my head like a— like a—" He looked like he was probing for a missing tooth, long pianist's fingers grasping almost unconsciously in the air before him as if the word hung there suspended on a spider's thread.

" _Memory_ ," she breathed, reaching out to splay her hand across the biting-cold pane. "Falling on my head like a— a new—"

" _Emotion_ ," he finished swiftly, and they met each other's wide eyes.

"I want to walk in the open wind," she said.

"I want to kiss like lovers do," he countered.

"I want to dive into your ocean," she said, and looked out toward the Atlantic just visible through New York's concrete forest.

"Is it raining with you?" they said as one, incredulous.

Wherever these words were coming from, it couldn't be their own minds. The lines felt far too _right_ , fitting together without mortar or glue, fitting snugly against each other and against that deceptively simple melody the two felt pulsing through their blood.

He reached for paper and a pen, but she knew it was unnecessary, knew the words were carved into her very bones now. She turned back to the window, words pouring into her mind as swiftly as the rain falling outside.

Seemingly coming to the same conclusion, he instead sat at his keyboard and began to play the cadences they had made before, the fragments now suddenly a complete melody. She spoke-sang the words, and they dripped from her mouth and fogged the window as he mouthed them along with her.

The rest of the song came easily, bizarrely easily, like they weren't creating the lines and music but remembering them, reciting them from a fever dream they'd had together years ago.

And so as the rain streamed down the glass and thunder rolled overhead, a song began to take form.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The 'she' here is orange-haired vocalist Annie Lennox and the 'he' is instrumentalist and producer Dave Stewart, the duo that makes up Eurythmics. This scene is a slightly dramatized version of what actually happened. There are two main stories about the writing of the song (of which I have included parts of each), and both agree that the critical inspirational moment was Lennox's looking out the window at an approaching rainstorm and commenting 'Here comes the rain again'. 
> 
> I read about this and wondered, well, epiphanies can come out of absolutely nowhere, or so it seems often enough—what if some of them were actually inspired by strong emotions of our personifications, national or otherwise? Who says the Hetalians are only reflections of us? Why not in some ways, at some times the other way around, too? After all, people can be inspired by all sorts of things--and patriotic songs are all inspired by the ideals and imagery of one's country. This would just be another, more intimate, way for nation-inspired art. And that's how this whole fic started. It helped too that I really like this earworm of a song. ^^
> 
> Stewart's line that starts, aptly, "We only need to start with that one line…" is a slightly modified actual quote of his.


	3. In Which America Is Not *Entirely* All Wet

_March 16, 1984_

It was raining again, a healthy precipitation of plump drops and low visibility, and as always England felt the calmness flow through him, the whisper of contemplation winding silver through his thoughts.

Thoughts continuously interrupted, it seemed, by the American seated beside him in the car. America had announced after the meeting that he—yet again—hadn't bothered exchanging dollars for pounds to pay for transportation to his hotel. This had metamorphosed into how England, as host nation, should give him a ride and now—somehow—entirely without England's actual acquiescence to this plan, here they were in England's Escort Mark III, America's longer legs bent awkwardly to fit around the oversized bag stuffed into his legroom.

America, who had worn an open-collared Hawaiian shirt and cowboy boots to the meeting today, and had despite all odds managed to look not nearly so much a bloody idiot as he should have. Only _he_ , England reflected, would be daft enough to wear a short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt and cowboy boots in March in Great Britain. Why America wasn't a pathetic shivering ball at this moment was a fact beyond his comprehension, though he suspected it might have to do with all that junk food.

"Y'know, I should prob'ly get an umbrella one of these days for when I'm over here," America said, fiddling with the radio with his usual respect for other people's possessions and boundaries. The comment, the fidgeting, and the temporary American occupation of England's passenger seat had all been repeated more times than England could count over the years, and by this time he had long given up on any change. If he had to admit it, he rather enjoyed their trips together away from their fellow countries' infinite varieties of inanity, just the two of them amiably exchanging deathly insults and watching the rain trickling down the windows in its almost equally varied permutations.

In fact, a part of him wondered if he kept picking Cardiff to host the meetings because it was his second-rainiest city, just so these rides would be more likely to occur. He kept insisting to that part of himself—not entirely convincingly—that any help he could get at keeping calm in the face of that gaggle of world-class idiots was to be used whenever possible.

Bringing himself back from his musings with a blink, England snorted. "If you got an umbrella it would _undoubtedly_ be ridiculously enormous and obnoxiously patterned with your flag." This was par for the course as well. "Admit it! You are constitutionally incapable of buying anything so simple and elegant as a black brolly."

"Of course I would! What's the point of carrying something like that around all day unless it makes you stand out as an individual?" He nodded vigorously to himself. "Yep, pretty sure that's written somewhere in the Constitution. The Founders had some _serious_ style—heck, just look at Ben Franklin! When the dude wasn't making friends with absolutely everybody, inventing awesome things, or writing even cooler things, he was picking up chicks even when he was, like, _sixty_. Oh yeah, and electrocuting turkeys in his spare time—he was a true American, so he did it for science _and_ dinner."

England just gave a contemptuous little huff. The Frog had liked that scandalously wig-less diplomat far too much—probably because he gave even France a run for his money for the title of ultimate ladies' man.

"On that subject," America said, turning to gaze at England in mock contemplation, "I've always theorized that the reason the eyebrows of the British are as enormous as they are to absorb their constant rain, keeping water from dripping into their eyes and thus giving them a valuable advantage in a fight. That's _science_ right there. _Science_." Eyes widening with a characteristically overwrought epiphany, he said "I should shave you all and make the most absorbent beach towels in the world! Or shag carpets! Or spaceship insulation! The possibilities are _endless_!"

Switching lanes, England tapped his steering wheel in his best professorial mien. "If we're going to be discussing _science_ , then I'd like to bring up the thick layer of blubber used by arctic mammals to help retain heat in frigid temperatures." He paused for theatrical effect. "Oh wait, that's right, you're not Canada. What's _your_ excuse?"

"Geez, man, haven't you ever been to Alaska?"

"Yes. It snowed. And you claimed to have discovered a new species of arctic wooly caterpillar." He sniffed. " _I_ saw no such creature."

America grinned, gazing off into the distance dreamily. "Those two were the furriest, whitest little creatures I've ever seen. I can't believe you didn't see 'em, England! They were practically right in front of your nose. Though they were camouflaged pretty well—I s'pose at your age your eyesight might be going."

"Insufferable git."

"Arrogant sunovabitch."

"Bloody Yank."

"Goddamn limey."

"Sodding septic."

"Poopy-face."

There was a pause.

"… _Poopy-face?_ "

"If you can't take the heat, dude, ya gotta stay out of the kitchen. Actually, in your case, stay out of the kitchen anyway."

"As if I needed more proof of your juvenility," England grumbled, resisting the urge to stick out his tongue. That was (one of) the (many) problems with Americans. They acted childish, you refused to sink to their level, and then before you knew it you were helping them make spitballs and construct pillow forts.

They pulled to a halt at a red light, England flicking on his right turn signal. Eyes following the traffic creeping through the water-slick intersection, he sighed. It looked like they might be stuck here a while. Apparently finally decided on a station, America sat back in his seat, clearly pleased about his successful backhanded returns to England's serves.

With a crackle of static the plucking of strings came on, and for a bemused moment England thought America had actually picked a classical music station. Then a synthesizer started in, and a woman's low voice.

 _Here comes the rain again_ , she sang, _falling on my head like a memory; falling on my head like a new emotion_.

And as his emotions took a wrenching turn, England stared wide-eyed at the radio singing his own rainy-day thoughts back at him.

Until that point, the mercurial, indefinable emotion that was his steadfast companion on such days as these had been in its usual place, adding a light sprinkle of welcome reflection to his usual tasks, a soothing drip-drip in the back of his mind whenever Russia was terrifyingly insane, America was obnoxiously obtuse, France was, well, France, and all the rest of his colleagues were being contrary and pig-headed.

But as the words and music sent icy drops rolling down his spine, an electric quivering that sent tiny hairs on his arms and down his back leaping upright in wonder and terror, that strange-familiar feeling abruptly roared through his blood and echoed the words through his bones, waking to a life he'd never known it could contain.

It was as though the world had shifted beneath his feet—no. It was as though he had again leapt from the cliffs, diving into the heart of the storm and the heart of the ocean and the heart of his self, a whirling, churning maelstrom of paradoxical tranquility, of—

—A rude finger prodded his cheek. "Hey man, what's up? You look like you've seen a ghost!" America paused, glancing around warily. "You haven't…actually seen a ghost, have you? Because if you have I'd, um, have to do something heroic…or something…"

"No…" said England, still dazed— _raining in my head like a tragedy—_ "Th-This song just seems familiar. That's all." That's _all_ , he repeated to himself firmly.

"Well, _sheesh_ , it should! Lately it's been high on the charts everywhere—well," America corrected himself, "everywhere that matters, anyway. It'd be weird if you _hadn't_ heard it before."

"But I _haven't_ heard it before, I _haven't_ ," England murmured to himself, staring blindly out the windscreen— _tearing me apart like a new emotion_ —"So why is it so bloody familiar? Could it…?"

America, listening to the music and nodding along happily, didn't seem to hear. "Dude, I frickin' love this song! Even if they're not American, the Eurythmics are pretty awesome. Remember 'Sweet Dreams'? Kept reminding me of all you Europeans sailing around and taking turns beating each other up, but other than that it was cool."

Glad to be distracted from the horrifying realization now creeping over him, England lifted a skeptical eyebrow. "Don't you usually like much louder, crasser music? Or disco?" _—_ _I want to breathe in the open wind—_ An apologetic honk from behind caused him to suddenly notice the green light, and he pulled into the intersection jerkily.

"Hah! That's rich coming from you, Mr. Punk. Nah, I like this song a lot. It…makes you shiver, y'know? But not in a scary way. It's all…sad and unending and unrequited love-y and stuff."

With that England was thrown off his bearings for the second time in two minutes, knuckles going white around the steering wheel. "Unreq—" He hastily cleared his throat, dropping his voice back down to its usual register. "What makes you think it's about unrequited love?"— _want to dive into your ocean_ —

America looked at him incredulously. "Oh, I don't know, the line about wanting to _talk_ like lovers do and wanting to _kiss_ like lovers do and the fact that Eurythmics actually _said_ that it's a melancholy song about unrequited love." He gave England a pointed look. "I thought you would know this stuff, they're your people after all."

"But that can't—" He abruptly stopped talking, because he realized what he was about to say. _But that can't be right, America, because I'm quite convinced my people in this group accidentally received my thoughts and emotions about rain and you—It's one of those things that happen sometimes, the link between nation and human can become a two-way street in rare circumstances, if their minds are very receptive to creative inspiration and the timing is_ _ **just so**_ _—and they then wrote a song about it which reveals, incidentally, that I apparently hold unrequited love for you and didn't know it until now. And if you keep laughing like that you're going to give yourself a heart attack, you fatuous fathead._

No, _absolutely_ not. He did not want to go down that path. Clearly something was lost in translation between his mind and the musicians'. Or even more likely, he thought, this was mere coincidence—for all that he was a personification of a nation, he was anthropomorphic in more ways than just physical shape. At his core he was nearly as human as his citizens, a macrocosm of their lives, experiences, and feelings. It only made sense that he might experience emotions quite similar to those of humans.

Even if some of his thoughts had slipped back down the spider-threads that bound nation and citizen and into a mind open enough to inspiration to allow them to grow, that did not mean the artists had not taken his thoughts and run with them to places his subconscious had not.

On the off-chance this had not occurred, there were also many meanings of love, though most songs and stories seemed to focus blindly on the romantic. The lyrics could be referring to how he wished he could go back to when they were brothers and America loved him as such—that was certainly true. It could even be referring to their current strange friendship of cultural exchanges and mutual deign and disdain—

— _talk to me, like lovers do; walk with me, like lovers do_ —

Perhaps not that particular theory.

Besides, assuming a song was about him specifically just because he empathized with its message— _most_ of its message, he corrected hastily—was the height of pretentious arrogance. He might as well start believing all those conspiracy theories of America's.

Nevertheless, England spent the rest of the drive in troubled silence— _here it comes again, here it comes again_ — consumed with thought. America chattered on about music, seemingly as happily oblivious as ever to the cares of the world, his companion's uncharacteristic unresponsiveness, even the rain pounding down outside.

 _Is it raining with you?_ the song asked and before he realized what he was doing England found himself repeating the question out loud.

"Is it raining with you, America?" It was spoken carelessly, but the question fell from his mouth with the heaviness of a much weightier question.

America paused, met his eyes for a moment with his own startling blues, then turned swiftly to look back out the window. "Nope," he said, voice casual. "Well, it's raining in Oregon and Louisiana, but then again it's _always_ raining in Oregon and Louisiana, so that's not news."

"I'm…glad to hear it, I suppose." He wasn't even sure what, exactly, he had asked.

Silence filled the car, silence made more silent by the contrasting tapping of the rain outside. This was _not_ the way their car rides went, and England cursed the song for introducing this new tension or stiffness or whatever the bloody hell it was into his peaceful drive.

That beautiful, awful song finally ended, and the radio commentator came on. England ignored him, ignored everything, and tried to sift through the jumbled drifts of thoughts crowding his mind.

_Aaaaand that was Eurythmics with their hit single 'Here Comes The Rain Again.' On that note, the forecast for this evening predicts continuing showers, so keep those brollies and wellies handy! Next up is '99 Red Balloons' by German band Nena, the current number one—_

"We're here," said America abruptly.

England blinked out of his daze to see the hotel's sign ahead. "So we are," he said awkwardly, mentally blessing his navigational abilities. There were advantages to knowing one's cities like the back of one's hand—particularly if those cities _were_ the back of one's hand.

They pulled up and, hefting his bag, America reached for the door handle. Pausing with a hand on it, he flashed England one of those sunshine smiles of his. "Hey, man, thanks for the ride. Heroes don't get soggy. Or squelch. Yeah, squelching's not cool at _all_."

England sniffed contemptuously. "I certainly didn't do it for your vanity, you dozy duffer. It's merely that—as they say—when America sneezes, the whole world catches cold. I'm simply looking after myself here."

His grin broadened. "Sure, sure. However you want to justify it to yourself. But _I_ know that somewhere, under layers of old man clothes and fairy dust and obscenities and burnt cooking and silly accents, you've got a heart. Even if it's kind of gross and pickled in alcohol at this point." His laughing eyes met England's for the first time since England had the compulsion to ask that strange question, and something in the vicinity of his presumed heart eased a little at this attempt at normalcy.

Yet despite this, the unnerving, discordant tension between them continued to thrum through his fingers and into his bones, and England rolled his eyes, breaking eye contact. "Yes, it's France's, in my sewing basket with pins stuck in. Just _go_ , you daft muppet."

He laughed, and finally shoved open the door, letting in a damp rush of cool wind. "See ya, England!" he called over his shoulder, and cheerfully bounced out of the car and towards the hotel's doors.

Watching him, England could only shake his head in exasperated amusement. The lying git clearly didn't care about getting wet, judging by the way he strolled leisurely through the downpour, face upturned into the falling rain. He wouldn't be surprised if the barmy boy was even sticking his tongue out to catch drops.

But soon enough the American disappeared inside, and England was left alone. Alone with his thoughts and the rain streaming down his windscreen. But then again, that was how he preferred things. Alone with his thoughts. Alone with the rain.

Alone with the strains of that song echoing through his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Historical Notes: England's car is a European Ford Escort Mark III, apparently ubiquitous on British streets in the 80s. America is wearing some classic early 80s menswear here—this particular style was popularized by Tom Selleck in Magnum, P.I. I thought it…appropriate, especially considering two of the characters' relationship. Frankly, we should be glad America isn't trying to grow a Selleck-'stache. And yes, this chapter is set in March and America is wandering around the UK in a Hawaiian shirt. Because he's America, dang it. Shag carpets are another 80s thing (no, not like that, British readers). I don't pretend to understand.
> 
> Cardiff, on the southern coast of Wales, is indeed the second-rainiest city in the UK. The fact that I have a friend there made the coincidence too fun not to put in. Oregon and Louisiana are, similarly, two of the rainiest states in the US. 
> 
> Benjamin Franklin: Everything America says here is true…and that particular turkey experiment wasn't the craziest of his adventures by far. I'm not going to get in the sheer fabulousness that is Franky-boy here, for it would take far too much room.
> 
> Arctic wooly-bear caterpillars do exist, and they are adorable, have a fascinating life-cycle (90% of their lives are spent frozen!), and are not white, but black. Hence America's discovery.
> 
> "Septic" means, apparently, an American. It comes from Cockney rhyming slang: "septic tank" = "Yank". "Muppet" is a rather fond insult, as British insults go—on the Grand Scale of British Synonyms for 'Idiot' (and my how it is grand), it places low and friendly. 
> 
> "When the US sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold" is a famous saying (apparently British in origin) referring to economic matters, but it's particularly amusing when applied to Hetalia (as so many things are).
> 
> As for whether this is a one-sided UKUS, not one-sided, or entirely absent—I am not going to answer that, because I'm not sure myself. It's certainly a relationship fic, though whether it is a romantic relationship fic is another question entirely. England makes some good points, whether or not he's just being his deny-everything self or actually logical.
> 
> So. Yep. What a weird fic. And you are very welcome to tell me so!


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